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Guy de Maupassant
Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant (5 August 1850 – 6 July 1893) was a
19th-century French author, remembered as a master of the short story form, as well as a
representative of the Naturalist school, who depicted human lives, destinies and social forces
in disillusioned and often pessimistic terms.
Maupassant was a protégé of Gustave Flaubert and his stories are characterized by
economy of style and efficient, seemingly effortless dénouements. Many are set during the
Franco-Prussian War of the 1870s, describing the futility of war and the innocent civilians
who, caught up in events beyond their control, are permanently changed by their experiences.
He wrote 300 short stories, six novels, three travel books, and one volume of verse. His first
published story, "Boule de Suif" ("The Dumpling", 1880), is often considered his most
famous work.
Maupassant is considered a father of the modern short story. Literary theorist
Kornelije Kvas wrote that along "with Chekhov, Maupassant is the greatest master of the
short story in world literature. He is not a naturalist like Zola; to him, physiological processes
do not constitute the basis of human actions, although the influence of the environment is
manifested in his prose. In many respects, Maupassant's naturalism is Schopenhauerian
anthropological pessimism, as he is often harsh and merciless when it comes to depicting
human nature. He owes most to Flaubert, from whom he learned to use a concise and
measured style and to establish a distance towards the object of narration." He delighted in
clever plotting, and served as a model for Somerset Maugham and O. Henry in this respect.
One of his famous short stories, "The Necklace", was imitated with a twist by Maugham ("Mr
Know-All", "A String of Beads"). Henry James's "Paste" adapts another story of his with a
similar title, "The Jewels".
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Taking his cue from Balzac, Maupassant wrote comfortably in both the high-Realist
and fantastic modes; stories and novels such as "L'Héritage" and Bel-Ami aim to recreate
Third-Republic France in a realistic way, whereas many of the short stories (notably "Le
Horla" and "Qui sait?") describe apparently supernatural phenomena.
The supernatural in Maupassant, however, is often implicitly a symptom of the
protagonists' troubled minds; Maupassant was fascinated by the burgeoning discipline of
psychiatry, and attended the public lectures of Jean-Martin Charcot between 1885 and 1886.
Leo Tolstoy used Maupassant as the subject for one of his essays on art: The Works of
Guy de Maupassant. His stories are second only to Shakespeare in their inspiration of movie
adaptations with films ranging from Stagecoach, Oyuki the Virgin and Masculine Feminine.
Friedrich Nietzsche's autobiography mentions him in the following text:
"I cannot at all conceive in which century of history one could haul together such
inquisitive and at the same time delicate psychologists as one can in contemporary Paris: I
can name as a sample – for their number is by no means small, ... or to pick out one of the
stronger race, a genuine Latin to whom I am particularly attached, Guy de Maupassant."
He was a popular writer during his lifetime and had the good fortune to see that his
stories were widely read. As a young man he fought in the Franco-Prussian War. He drew
heavily on that experience and that war provides the setting for many of his stories which
often depict the tragedy and suffering of innocent civilians caught in war's path. He also
found inspiration in the not-so-admirable behavior of the bourgeoisie, and made them targets
of his biting pessimism and skewering pen.
His most famous work for English readers is probably The Necklace. Other important
works are A Piece of String, Mademoiselle Fifi, Miss Harriet, My Uncle Jules, Found on a
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Drowned Man and The Wreck. Collections of short stories and novels followed one another
in quick succession until illness struck Maupassant down. Two years saw six new books of
short stories: Mademoiselle Fifi (1883), Contes de la bécasse (1883; “Tales of the Goose”),
Clair de lune, Les Soeurs Rondoli (“The Rondoli Sisters”), Yvette, and Miss Harriet (all
1884). The stories can be divided into groups: those dealing with the Franco-German War, the
Norman peasantry, the bureaucracy, life on the banks of the Seine River, the emotional
problems of the different social classes, and—somewhat ominously in a late story such as Le
Horla (1887)—hallucination. Together, the stories present a comprehensive picture of French
life from 1870 to 1890.
Maupassant’s most important full-length novels are Une Vie, Bel-Ami (1885; “Good
Friend”), and Pierre et Jean (1888). Bel-Ami is drawn from the author’s observation of the
world of sharp businessmen and cynical journalists in Paris, and it is a scathing satire on a
society whose members let nothing stand in the way of their ambition to get rich quick.
Maupassant’s later books of short stories include Toine (1886), Le Horla (1887), Le Rosier de
Madame Husson (1888; “The Rose-Bush of Madame Husson”), and L’Inutile Beauté (1890;
“The Useless Beauty”). Four more novels also appeared: Mont-Oriol (1887), on the financing
of a fashionable watering place; Pierre et Jean; Fort comme la mort (1889; “As Strong as
Death”); and Notre coeur (1890; “Our Heart”).
